seitan

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. A chewy, protein-rich food made from wheat gluten and used as a meat substitute.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. Wheat gluten.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term was coined in Japanese by philosopher George Ohsawa in the early 1960s to refer to wheat gluten as used in Ohsawa's macrobiotic system of cooking and health. It may derive from 成 (sei-, "be, become") or 製 (-sei, "made of") + 蛋 (tan-) (from 蛋白 ("protein")). In Japan, wheat gluten itself is usually referred to as 麩 (fu, "wheat bran, gluten").

Examples

It's unclear whether the lawmaker was referring to "seitan" -- the vegan-friendly meat-substitute -- or to Hell's landlord.

The next big thing - which got its big 20th-century boost from the macrobiotic movement, whose pioneer George Ohsawa gave this ancient food a new Japanese name meaning "protein-made" - is called seitan, pronounced not "Satan" but "say-tahn."

And many of the vegetarian protein sources such as seitan and tempeh both of which I actually like are extremely salty which is another problem if you need to limit either sodium intake or fluid intake.